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climate change
May 2009 
More bio-fuel maddness and drastic investment loss
Posted on Aug 19th, 2007
by 
Chris
Chris
Good to see wider recognition of the potential problems with the developing biofuels market as I mentioned in my entry on May 23rd, 2007. Check out the BBC website for more details:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6949861.stm
Here's an extract that gives the gist of the story regarding biofuel crops;
"A team of UK-based scientists suggested that reforestation and habitat protection was a better option. Writing in Science, they said forests could absorb up to nine times more CO2 than the production of biofuels could achieve on the same area of land. The growth of biofuels was also leading to more deforestation, they added.
However, [Dr Righelato, chairman of the World Land Trust] said that so-called second generation biofuels, which used feedstocks such as straw, grasses and wood (lignocellulosic material) rather than grains or palm oil, offered a much better opportunity.
'If you can extract lignocellulosic materials sustainably from forests without destroying the soil and maintain a way that forests can rapidly regrow, it is quite possible you can have your cake and eat it, as it were.' "
Here at Penrhos we call it coppicing and pollarding, two very ancient techniques for harvesting timber sustainably. We cut some of the trees that we planted or encouraged to regenerate every three to twelve years (or more), depending on the species. Cutting at ground level is coppicing, cutting higher up the trunk is pollarding. Suitable trees are mainly deciduous like oak, ash, lime, willow, polplar and the cutting tends to increase their life span. Pollarding allows for the growth of a longer term crop as well in that the trunk can get big and be harvested in maybe fifty or a hundred years time for high value timber. It also keeps the new growth that sprouts from below the cut up out of reach of grazing animals.
As usual, being permies, we look for multiple yields so any pruning that we do while the trees are in leaf goes to the livestock first who strip the leaves, small branches and bark leaving us with the firewood, the simplest form of bio-fuel. Much of our fuel this year comes from management of our northern shelter belt of trees that needs to be regularly cut at a variety of heights in order to maintain a thickety appearance and slow the wind. Coppice trees can also be interspaced with standards, that is, trees that are high pruned and allowed to grow tall for a long term crop of high quality timber. Coppice produces a mosaic landscape with a rich variety of ecological niches and, therefore, many opportunities for multiplre yields.
To finish off I just want to refer back to my previous entry and John's useful comments. I should really title this bit "Terrible losses strike bitter blow to investor!". After blowing my own trumpet regarding massive returns on small investments, a fierce predator or predators literally decimated my ducks, taking six off the pool in less than a week followed by two ducklings leaving just one mature female and her single remaining offspring. This hurt me far more than an equivalent monetary loss, being as they were all second or third generation Penrhos ducks that I had nurtured and loved.
The initial attack we judged to be a fox by the carcasses. This was follwed by a weasel that gained entry to the duck house through a really small hole, now patched with tin; we saw the beast making a run for it when I made the repair. But the final loss may well have been a mink; we caught a glimpse of what could have been one and Eric, who lives a mile further up in the woods, reckons he's seen one. This is serious news indeed as they are voracious non native predators, often released from fur farms by well meaning animal rights activists who are ignorant of the dire consequences to native wildlife of their actions.
Its a great shame to lose so many ducks and if mink have arrived in our area it may not be possible to continue raising water fowl. The challenge will be to apply the permaculture principle, "the problem is the solution" and try to find a postive way forward involving mink. Meanwhile, the potatoes (trees and everything else) just keep on growing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6949861.stm
Here's an extract that gives the gist of the story regarding biofuel crops;
"A team of UK-based scientists suggested that reforestation and habitat protection was a better option. Writing in Science, they said forests could absorb up to nine times more CO2 than the production of biofuels could achieve on the same area of land. The growth of biofuels was also leading to more deforestation, they added.
However, [Dr Righelato, chairman of the World Land Trust] said that so-called second generation biofuels, which used feedstocks such as straw, grasses and wood (lignocellulosic material) rather than grains or palm oil, offered a much better opportunity.
'If you can extract lignocellulosic materials sustainably from forests without destroying the soil and maintain a way that forests can rapidly regrow, it is quite possible you can have your cake and eat it, as it were.' "
Here at Penrhos we call it coppicing and pollarding, two very ancient techniques for harvesting timber sustainably. We cut some of the trees that we planted or encouraged to regenerate every three to twelve years (or more), depending on the species. Cutting at ground level is coppicing, cutting higher up the trunk is pollarding. Suitable trees are mainly deciduous like oak, ash, lime, willow, polplar and the cutting tends to increase their life span. Pollarding allows for the growth of a longer term crop as well in that the trunk can get big and be harvested in maybe fifty or a hundred years time for high value timber. It also keeps the new growth that sprouts from below the cut up out of reach of grazing animals.
As usual, being permies, we look for multiple yields so any pruning that we do while the trees are in leaf goes to the livestock first who strip the leaves, small branches and bark leaving us with the firewood, the simplest form of bio-fuel. Much of our fuel this year comes from management of our northern shelter belt of trees that needs to be regularly cut at a variety of heights in order to maintain a thickety appearance and slow the wind. Coppice trees can also be interspaced with standards, that is, trees that are high pruned and allowed to grow tall for a long term crop of high quality timber. Coppice produces a mosaic landscape with a rich variety of ecological niches and, therefore, many opportunities for multiplre yields.
To finish off I just want to refer back to my previous entry and John's useful comments. I should really title this bit "Terrible losses strike bitter blow to investor!". After blowing my own trumpet regarding massive returns on small investments, a fierce predator or predators literally decimated my ducks, taking six off the pool in less than a week followed by two ducklings leaving just one mature female and her single remaining offspring. This hurt me far more than an equivalent monetary loss, being as they were all second or third generation Penrhos ducks that I had nurtured and loved.
The initial attack we judged to be a fox by the carcasses. This was follwed by a weasel that gained entry to the duck house through a really small hole, now patched with tin; we saw the beast making a run for it when I made the repair. But the final loss may well have been a mink; we caught a glimpse of what could have been one and Eric, who lives a mile further up in the woods, reckons he's seen one. This is serious news indeed as they are voracious non native predators, often released from fur farms by well meaning animal rights activists who are ignorant of the dire consequences to native wildlife of their actions.
Its a great shame to lose so many ducks and if mink have arrived in our area it may not be possible to continue raising water fowl. The challenge will be to apply the permaculture principle, "the problem is the solution" and try to find a postive way forward involving mink. Meanwhile, the potatoes (trees and everything else) just keep on growing.
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